I love a good Hollywood melodrama. Particularly full-color big-budget melodramas that directors such as Douglas Sirk (ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, WRITTEN ON THE WIND, IMITATION OF LIFE), Mark Robson (PEYTON PLACE, FROM THE TERRACE, VALLEY OF THE DOLLS) and Delmer Daves (A SUMMER PLACE, SUSAN SLADE, ROME ADVENTURE) dished out in the 1950s and 60s. Critics often refer to these movies as “women’s pictures” or “weepies” but that trite description tends to put them in a corner or a small box and the movies are often much too big and multifaceted to be shoehorned into a simple one-size-fits all package. Last year I re-watched many of my favorite mid-century melodramas and caught up with a few I hadn’t seen before including Jean Negulesco’s THE BEST OF EVERYTHING (1959), which features the one and only Joan Crawford in a small but standout role as Amanda Farrow, a cutthroat editor working at a New York publishing firm.

Like many of Jean Negulesco’s films (HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, THREE COINS IN A FOUNTAIN and THE PLEASURE SEEKERS), THE BEST OF EVERYTHING focuses on the lives of three women and their romantic follies but there’s a darker and more pertinent aspect to this tale of three secretaries trying to climb the corporate ladder to success that separates it from Negulesco’s more lighthearted outings. In THE BEST OF EVERYTHING reluctant career girl Caroline (Hope Lange), the hopelessly romantic April (Diane Baker) and aspiring actress Gregg (Suzy Parker) struggle with sexual harassment, rejection, heartbreak and an unplanned pregnancy but their biggest obstacle might be Joan Crawford, as the brash, bitchy, chain-smoking Amanda Farrow who rules the office with a jewel encrusted fist. Crawford’s character has seen it all, done it all and survived it all and she never lets the young women who work under her forget it. In what amounts to about 15-20 minutes of screen time, Crawford proceeds to chew her way through the eye-popping scenery and effortlessly commands every scene she’s in.

This was the first time that the Queen of the Movies had been reduced to playing a secondary character in decades. Crawford took the part in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING because she needed the money following the unexpected death of her husband, Pepsi Cola executive Alfred Steele, who she once called her “soul mate.” Steele died deep in debt which was passed onto Joan and she was forced to take his seat on the executive board of Pepsi Cola in order to repay his loans. Crawford quickly discovered how competitive and merciless the world of business could be as the only woman working for a powerful company in an executive position. And that real world experience undoubtedly informed her role in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING. By all accounts Crawford was devastated by Steele’s death and must have felt the burden of suddenly being solely responsible for her and her family’s financial well-being. During the filming of THE BEST OF EVERYTHING, Crawford supposedly broke down in tears many times on set and was often seen mixing vodka with her Pepsi. Her distress was amplified by the conflicts she was having with her costar Hope Lange whom she once referred to as a “young upstart” and director Jean Negulesco.

13 years earlier Crawford had successfully worked with Negulesco on the Oscar nominated film HUMORESQUE (1946) but she was no longer the “star” of the film and the director refused to give her special treatment. When Crawford asked Negulesco to help her in private rehearsals so she could work on her role the director refused and he often sided with Hope Lange when she and Crawford disagreed on a particular line reading. Crawford was 55-years-old and was no longer getting the star treatment she had grown used to. Faced with her own mortality and an uncertain future while still grieving her recently deceased husband must have been a bitter pill to swallow. The escalating conflicts made for a tense set during filming but they also may have helped Crawford deliver a powerful and punchy performance.

Crawford’s role was originally written as a one dimensional she-monster with very little depth. The audience wasn’t supposed to care about her background or how she had succeeded in a business world made up of men with “clean-cut faces and dirty little minds.” We were supposed to loathe her and root against her success and in a lessor actor’s hands Crawford’s character in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING could have easily been reduced to a comic book-style villain. But Crawford was incapable of delivering a one note performance. With only a handful of lines and very little screen time, she gave Amanda Farrow a rich inner life that makes us care about her underdeveloped story. We want to know more about Farrow, we want to spend more time in her lush New York apartment and we want to see a glimpse of the mystery men who she romances off screen. And apparently we could have if director Jean Negulesco and producer Jerry Wald hadn’t decided to cut one of Crawford’s major scenes showing Amanda Farrow getting rip-roaring drunk while she unloads her troubles on an unsuspecting bartender. By all accounts it was supposed to be Crawford’s “big screen moment” and one of the reasons she agreed to take the minor role. Witnesses claimed that it was superbly acted but it ended up on the cutting room floor because the studio thought the film had grown too long and unwieldy. Naturally Crawford was furious when she found out and it supposedly soured her on the acting profession for a few years before she was finally lured back to Hollywood to costar in the cult classic WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (1962) with longtime rival Bette Davis.

Crawford’s scene stealing performance is one of the reasons you should watch THE BEST OF EVERYTHING when it airs on TCM Jan. 30th but it also has a lot of other things to recommend it. Much of the film was shot on location in New York giving audiences a wonderful view of “The Big Apple” in the late 1950s and most of the interiors were shot on the Twentieth Century-Fox backlot. Director Jean Negulesco was an artist himself and the film is a visual feast for anyone who appreciates mid-century design. From the Mondrian inspired office interiors to the Stilnovo style lamps that sit on the executive’s desks and the Bernard Buffet art that occupies wall space, the film makes great use of period fittings and fixtures. It also features a beautiful score by composer Alfred Newman and a great title song composed by Sammy Cahn and sung by the velvet voiced Johnny Mathis. The rest of the cast is also very good, particularly the always reliable Brian Aherne as a sleazy publisher and Suzy Parker who losses her mind over Louis Jourdan. It’s hard to blame her of course (we’re talking about Louis Jourdan after all!) and Parker’s character arc, which has her playing a fiery would-be actress who transforms into an overzealous stalker, is fascinating to watch. Parker had been a hugely successful model before she got into acting and watching her in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING makes you wish that she had made more movies. It’s also worth noting that the film has been cited as one of the major influences on the popular television series MAD MEN and fans of the show should enjoy spotting the similarities.

The film suffers from a tacked on Hollywood ending that has Hope Lange’s spunky character nearly running into the arms of her much-too conventional and preachy coworker (Stephen Boyd) and it’s hard to believe when all the men in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING are so unlikable. Boyd, along with costars Brian Aherne, Louis Jourdan and Robert Evans, play the worst kind of hard-drinking cads and wretches imaginable. But the actors seem to relish playing bad guys who lurk over the women like hungry vultures and cause them all kinds of grief. I also couldn’t help but notice that director Jean Negulesco seemed determined to make New York look threatening and downright scary at times by shooting the towering skyscrapers like they’re unreachable monuments built to celebrate masculine dominance over commerce. The tall office buildings appear to swallow up the women who dare to enter them and cast great shadows over their activities throughout the film. It may not be a conventional horror film but there are plenty of monsters in THE BEST OF EVERYTHING and Negulesco’s stylized direction made me feel as if I was watching a thriller or a mystery at times. The unpredictable nature of the film and its smart direction really impressed me and made it one of my favorite film discoveries of 2013. Watch it for Crawford but stick with it if you want to see one of Negulesco’s most rewarding films.

One of the best “lush” melodramas of the 50s/60s…for a real treat watch it marathon-style with “Peyton Place”, “Valley of the Dolls”, and “Imitation of Life”!

Posted By Doug : January 9, 2014 11:01 pm

Funny how things tie together,Kimberly-you mention Brian Aherne today and just last night I saw him in “A Night To Remember” with Loretta Young. I was impressed by the natural chemistry between the two; it was the first that I’d seen Young in a comedy.
Reading between the lines of your post, do you think that perhaps
Negulesco had conflicts with Crawford when they did “Humoresque”
which led to retribution during this film?
A lesser person might have folded her tents and quit rather than put up with ill treatment, but I can’t imagine Crawford as a quitter.
One of the best movies that I’ve seen from the same era is “Black Widow” with Ginger Rogers and Gene Tierney.
I’m pleased that Joan Crawford is being honored by TCM and Morlocks.

Posted By Kimberly Lindbergs : January 9, 2014 11:40 pm

Doug – Glad you’re enjoying our tribute to Crawford! As for Brian Aherne, he is really good in this but he tends to be good in everything. I always forget his name and refer to him as “That Guy” or “One of Joan Fontaine’s Husbands” but he deserves better than that. As for Negulesco’s conflicts with Crawford, from the accounts I’ve read they seemed to work together well on HUMORESQUE. I think tension arose from the fact that Crawford was cast just 10 days before the film went into production and didn’t have much time to work out her character and expected to get the kind of respect and directorial help that she was used to. I didn’t mention it in my piece, but her costar Diane Baker also reported that Negulesco was uncommonly hard on Crawford and didn’t think the director respected the fact that she was still mourning her dead husband. I don’t believe I’ve seen BLACK WIDOW and I adore Tierney so many thanks for the recommendation! Must check it out soon.

Posted By Susan Doll : January 10, 2014 2:11 am

This looks terrific, especially the visuals. I didn’t realize the similarities of Negulesco’s movies until you pointed them out. Interesting.

Posted By Martha C : January 10, 2014 3:57 am

Joan Crawford just shines in this film. I agree, wish we could’ve spent more time with Amanda Farrow and, hate to say it, less time with the pregnant gal. Really enjoying all the Crawford love, finally finished watching all the films from last week. Watching/recording the ones on tonight/tomorrow. One I haven’t seem before (title escapes me!) features Franchot Tone as Crawford’s brother…oh my!

Posted By Jenni : January 10, 2014 2:33 pm

I watched this a year or so ago when TCM aired it but missed the fact that Brian Aherne was in it-I’ve just discovered him from roles he played in his younger days…might need to revisit this to see him play a cad!

Posted By kingrat : January 10, 2014 9:06 pm

Can’t wait to see this film again, which I’ve only seen on black-and-white TV. The visuals look stunning.

Jean Negulesco is perhaps the most underrated director of the studio era (Anatole Litvak and Clarence Brown would be the other candidates). He begins as a very ambitious director (THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS) who’s good with films that often have elements of noir, women’s melodrama, and psychological drama. Check out THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS, NOBODY LIVES FOREVER, THREE STRANGERS, HUMORESQUE, DEEP VALLEY, ROAD HOUSE, and JOHNNY BELINDA to understand this phase of his work. The visuals are sometimes very striking, not least in DEEP VALLEY.

THREE CAME HOME (1950) is an excellent drama about a family interned in a Japanese prison camp in Borneo. “The Last Leaf” in O. HENRY’S FULL HOUSE is a great return to his more expressionist roots.

At Fox, Negulesco becomes more a competent, successful director rather than a brilliant one, and his Cinemascope films are, to my mind, not quite so interesting as his films in the earlier ratio. Still, HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE and THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN became two of his biggest hits, DADDY LONG LEGS makes the May/December pairing of Caron and Astaire palatable, BOY ON A DOLPHIN has some fine passages, and thus we come to THE BEST OF EVERYTHING.

Kimberly, those stills from THE BEST OF EVERYTHING are knockouts.

Posted By Kimberly Lindbergs : January 11, 2014 1:11 am

Thanks for all the kind comments! Much appreciated.

Kingrat – Must agree that Negulesco is an underrated director of the studio era. I love his early films with Peter Lorre and even though I’ve had mixed reactions to his later work such as HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN, DADDY LONG LEGS & BOY ON A DOLPHIN (all films I enjoyed but found somewhat forgettable in the long run) there’s no denying that he was a very talented man and I found THE BEST OF EVERYTHING exceptional. It made me want revisit his other work.

Posted By kingrat : January 11, 2014 2:14 am

Working for Warner Brothers, as opposed to Fox, seemed to bring out the best in Negulesco. Or perhaps being successful and comfortable wasn’t the best thing for his art.

Posted By swac44 : January 15, 2014 3:03 pm

I’m guessing Billy Wilder must have seen this prior to making The Apartment. Haven’t seen it yet myself, but I have a friend who owns pretty much every available Crawford movie, so I’ll put it on my want list.

Posted By Klara : January 20, 2014 9:32 pm

I saw this years ago and loved it. I remember getting swept up into it and enjoying it more than most of these melodramas. Also enjoyed the cast — Suzy Parker especially. Might want to revisit:)

Posted By Blakeney : February 4, 2014 3:53 am

Truthfully I don’t always enjoy melodrama’s (some of the stupidity and self-destructive behaviors make me grit my teeth) but I really enjoyed this new discovery. I was moved when Joan’s character could not make a new life for herself with her farmer because it was “too late” for her to try being “soft”. And I wanted to learn more about Ms. Farrow’s story, too. I could have spent a little lest time with Gregg pining after Louis Jordan, even if it was Louis Jordan.

Also, I’m not sure if I’m amused or annoyed with this, but it’s amazing how April is lying in the hospital, bereft and dumped, nothing at all to live for, but, oh look! There’s a blond doctor with chiseled features right there on the scene. And he’s looking at you April, with concerned and loving eyes. (Puh-leeze!)

Posted By Blakeney : February 4, 2014 4:04 am

One more thing – was it standard medical practice in the 50′s to bind up a woman’s head when she’s had a miscarriage? I’m thinking medical knowledge might have been a bit spotty back then

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